Breaking Point
by Haelia
Summary: When Sherlock and Donovan are abducted and Sherlock is grievously wounded, it is up to Donovan to get them both out. "First things first, Freak. You do not give me orders. You are going to do everything I tell you to," Sally said sharply, "because we are getting out of here." Can they both escape with their lives from the most dangerous gang in London?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: For Nos. Please enjoy!**

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Something was wrong. Sally Donovan knew, the moment she clawed her way back to consciousness, that something was very, _very_ wrong.. She could feel cold tile beneath her as she lay sprawled on her belly, and its unforgiving surface pressed painfully against her hipbones and breasts, digging into her elbows. A cautious sip of a breath brought the odours of dank water and human excrement, along with something acrid and antiseptic in nature. The distant, latent memory of _dangerdangerdanger_ forced her to keep her eyes closed and her body still. She gave herself silent commands: _Be still. Breathe slowly. Assess the situation._

One and two were easily enough achieved, but three would prove difficult. Sally began with the simple and obvious. Turning her thoughts inward, she took stock of her own body. Nausea, headache. Dull pain... lower back. Minutely, she flexed fingers and toes; knees and ankles; on and up until she was assured that most of her was in good working order. _Okay, _she thought, _that's good. _She was, for all intents and purposes, whole and unhurt.

Next came a more difficult question: _Where am I?_ The answer did not come. _Prison cell_, she thought, judging by the environment, but she was far from certain. She abandoned this question in favour of the next, which was more pressing.

_What happened_? Vague images and sound bites floated just out of reach, dark ships on the murky waters of her consciousness. She resisted the urge to reach up and rub her temples, and channeled her energy into concentration instead. Unbidden, the ordeal flashed by in brief stills like a bad montage from a horror film sequel. Sally ground her teeth together as the memories flooded back: being dragged from her flat – then blackness – the masked face of a man who spoke softly – vague threats – references to an investigation she knew nothing about – a man's guttural screams – more threats, these ones concrete and directed against the man's life.

_But I didn't recognise that voice_, Sally recalled. She remembered being tied to a support beam in a sterilised basement somewhere, and hearing those awful screams as though they came from several rooms away. The masked man interrogating her hadn't touched her, but he had kept making threats against whoever was screaming from down the hall. She didn't tell them she knew nothing, didn't tell them she had no idea who that man was just based on his voice. Once she did that, she'd be useless and disposable – Sally was clever; she kept her mouth shut and played the part.

"Just tell me what I want to know," the masked figure had said, his voice smooth and honeyed. "If you cooperate, I won't hurt him. But if you don't, then I can't guarantee his safety... or his life."

Sally had refused, in no uncertain terms. She was terrified to find out who the other prisoner was – Greg? Anderson? Dimmock?

Oh, god.

Her refusal had bought her some time, though. "I'm a reasonable man," said her captor sweetly, nodding behind the mask that obscured his entire face. Almost like a fencing mask, Donovan recalled, and she found it strange. "I'll give you a little while to think it over." After that, it was just blackness. Someone had stuck something into her leg that stung and burned, and then – lights out.

Sally reoriented herself, harshly summarising her situation in her head, attempting to bring some clarity to the ordeal: _I have been abducted. My captors are involved with an ongoing investigation that I am not a part of. They are holding someone else as well, and it may be someone that I know personally_.

The rustle of fabric from somewhere behind her brought Sally back to reality with a jolt. She lay still as a statue, trying to decide whether it was safe to move. The sounds of ragged breathing reached her, but there was no other noise in the room.

Slowly and carefully, Donovan opened her eyes. She braced herself for the onslaught of pain that bright light would bring, but there was none, owing to the fact that the room – if it could be called that – was lit only by one dim bulb swinging from the centre of the ceiling.

Earlier, she had thought _prison cell_. This was as accurate a description as possible, except that this place was worse than a prison – it was filthy and damp and Sally could see neither windows nor door. There was no water source, no toilet, no obvious connection to any world outside these four walls.

And there was a lump of fabric in the corner, which was now moving.

"Who's there?" Donovan demanded as she sat up. She pushed herself backward, toward a wall, and used it as a support as she climbed to her feet, her muscles twitching with defensive impulses. There was no answer to her query. She narrowed her eyes and tried to make out the alien silhouette in the dim light, to no avail. She wasn't sure what she was looking at – a person, presumably, but crouching in wait or simply sitting down? It was hard to tell. "Who is that?" she said again.

The only answer was a ragged sigh and a groan that was almost a sob. Sally's instinctual impulses were split in two: _prisoner-wounded-help_ and _danger-trap-careful_.

If this was a trap, it was a pretty stupid one, she decided.

"You're the other one," Sally said, half-questioning, approaching carefully. _The other prisoner, the one they were torturing while I was being questioned. _The sigh that reached her ears sounded something like relief, and she quickened her pace. As she drew closer, she could see that the figure in the corner was indeed a man, and that he was lying propped up against the wall, covered by what had probably once been his coat. As she passed the hanging bulb, she gently pushed it with her fingers, causing it to swing and throw its light briefly onto the man who lay before her.

When she saw his face, she couldn't swallow the gasp that tore its way from her throat. It took a second arc of the lightbulb to confirm what she'd seen, but when she did, she felt a surge of emotions well up inside her – mostly anger, but also partially fear and concern and confusion.

"Freak?" she ground out, her voice considerably more shrill than she had meant for it to be. She closed the space between them in two more strides and sunk down to her knees beside him. "What the hell happened?" she demanded, abandoning the gentle tone she had used only moments ago. "What is going on?"

Sherlock sipped air through his teeth – the struggles of a man who knows he must breathe but finds it indescribably painful. "Lestrade's case," he said, and his voice was hoarse to the point of being unrecognisable. "Wakefield case. Drug ring – isn't a drug ring – got too close."

Wakefield, Wakefield... Sally knew the Wakefield case. Wakefield was just a code name – her captors hadn't used it in interrogating her, so she hadn't known what they were asking her about. Even now that she had heard the name, she was fuzzy on the details. Wakefield was, as Sherlock had mentioned, a rather large investigation into a drug ring in central London. Lestrade had been working on it with two other departments, and it was all very classified. Supposedly there were a couple of undercover cops on the case, hence the secrecy. But of course, Greg would make an exception for the Freak, because he was who he was. What Sherlock was saying now, though, simply didn't make sense.

"Not a drug ring?" Sally repeated, confused. She shook her head.

Sherlock squirmed underneath the warm confines of the woolen coat and might have rolled his eyes if he was capable of keeping them open. "Not. Drugs. People," he hissed. "Women – children. Lestrade... doesn't know...

Sally reeled. Human trafficking? Was that what he was saying? How could they have not known that already? "How long have you been here?"

"Not sure. Days maybe."

"You were supposed to be in Dublin, questioning a runaway witness."

The sound Sherlock made in response was probably meant to be a laugh, but it wasn't clear.

"I see," Sally murmured. Her lips thinned as her eyes trailed over his face, noting the bruise blossoming along his cheekbone and the smudge of blood on his jaw. "Anyone else mixed up in this?"

"Just – us – the rest – safe." Sherlock's eyelids fluttered.

"Where do I fit in with all this?"

A groan preceded the response. "Don't know. Wrong – place. Wrong – time."

"My flat, in the middle of the night?" Sally was dubious.

"Must have – thought you were – involved."

"Lucky me." Donovan sniffed. She shook her head, dark curls bouncing, and wrapped her fingers around the collar of the coat obscuring Sherlock's body. She pulled it back to find his fine clothes in tatters. Filthy, torn, the buttons of his oxford shirt missing from collar to hem. Even in the dim room, she could make out the swath of white skin that lay exposed between the ragged edges of the deep purple placket, as well as the thick, congealed smears of old blood. With cautious fingers, she pushed the material aside and bit down on a groan at what she saw. Three long, deep gashes stretched across Sherlock's torso starting at his left armpit, continuing in thick, jagged lines, down and across to his right hip. It looked like he'd been attacked by a wild animal. The wound was infected and weeping, blood oozing anew from the deepest sections even as she looked on. This appeared to be the worst of his injuries, but there were a dozen others at least – cuts and bruises and scrapes and what appeared to be a dislocated shoulder. Sally reached out to examine by touch, but stopped with a startled gasp as a pale hand shot out and clamped down over her wrist with remarkable strength.

"Don't," Sherlock grunted, his eyes now open and unnaturally wide, staring into hers. She could feel the abnormal heat emanating from his body.

"Don't be daft," she snapped, shaking him off. He'd wasted his strength with that movement, and disengaging his hand was a simple task; it dropped limply to the floor when she pried her wrist loose. She bent over him, inspecting the wounds on his chest in the dim light, and when he squirmed under her scrutiny, she pulled up abruptly. This time her hand encircled his wrist, and she could feel the tension in the tightly-wound tendons that flexed beneath the skin.

He didn't want her to see him like this. Vulnerable, at a weakness. He was irritated, defensive.

_Well, it's no holiday for me either_.

"Sally - don't," came the whispered plea, once again.

_You got me into this,_ she thought, her features tightening as she glared at him through the semi-darkness. _Worse yet, you ran off on your own to investigate what may be the most dangerous group of criminals in London, leaving the rest of us to clean up after you. You do not get to dictate the details of this arrangement now – it is a little late for that!_

"Knock it off," Sally said sharply, her fingers twitching around the thin rail of his wrist. "First things first, Freak. You do not give me orders. Are we clear? Second, I refuse to deal with the train wreck that will be John Watson if you up and die, so that is not allowed either. Third, you are going to do everything that I tell you to, because we are getting the _fuck_ out of here. Do you understand?"

For a moment, it looked as though Sherlock had been cowed, but the brief impression swiftly melted as he huffed out a thin, painful laugh. "Really," he challenged in a reedy voice. His tone was one of disbelief, but Sally noted that he did not resist as she eased him out of his shirt one arm at a time.

"Really," she said firmly, tearing the expensive cloth into strips. There was silence for several seconds, interrupted only by the rasp of fabric breaking in Sally's hands. She watched him in furtive glances, and glared when he lifted his eyes to hers. "Tell me what you know," she said at length, using some of the torn garment to mop up the wounds on Sherlock's chest.

He took a shuddering breath and recognised that she was trying to distract him from her ministrations. Why? She hated him – had threatened him on more than one occasion. She should take pleasure in seeing him like this, in adding to his pain. People were simple, people just worked like that. "Not much," he admitted, forcing himself out of his own head. "I know... that they know... that I got too close. That Lestrade... got too close – ah!"

Sally had pressed a wad of fabric down into the worst part of the trenches crossing Sherlock's chest. She had nothing to clean the wounds with, so staunching the bleeding and keeping out further filth were the only things she could do. "Go on," she ordered, continuing her work without missing a beat. Her mouth was a grim line. "What did Greg do?"

"Nothing," Sherlock said, his voice sharp with pain. He closed his eyes, his head tipping back so that his face was turned toward the ceiling. "He was – on the verge of cracking – the front." He sucked a short breath. "The drug trade."

"The drug trade is a front, okay... So it does exist, but it's just hiding the real operation."

"Exactly."

"So why did they grab you?"

"Thought – I was – Lestrade." This in barely a whisper. Sherlock's head lolled to one side.

"Oh." The implications of what he was saying finally sunk in, and Sally was left confused. If he was telling the truth – which he must have been; she had never known him to lie – then he was saying that he had taken the fall for Lestrade. He had continued where Lestrade had left off however-many days ago, and when they snatched him, thinking he was Greg, he played along.

"Do they still think that?" Sally questioned in a low voice, glancing around the cell. She hadn't seen a camera or anything, but that didn't mean someone wasn't listening to their conversation just the same.

"Doubtful. But... might be... why... they took... you..."

She could hear the grogginess edging into his voice, and added a few more strips of fabric to the wounds. "Don't go to sleep! Tell me about the case."

"Can't."

"You know, Dr. Watson's been chasing around your informant all week."

The corner of Sherlock's mouth lifted in a wry smile. "I know. Had to – distract him."

"Is the informant really an informant at all?"

"Not precisely."

The conversation died as Sally finished what she was doing and tried to triage the rest of the wounds - most severe to least. She wasn't a medic and had almost no experience in this sort of thing beyond basic first aid. Hesitantly, her fingers ghosted over the misshapen lump of Sherlock's dislocated shoulder, her face contorting in a grimace of pure dread. "I have to set this..."

This seemed to rouse the detective somewhat, and he shook his head vigourously. "No," he said. "_Please_ don't."

"I've done it before," she clarified, in case he had noticed the apprehension in her voice. "I can be quick."

"_No_," he said again, more emphatically.

Sally set her jaw and bent low so that their faces were quite close. She watched as Sherlock's eyes jumped unsteadily and then focussed on her intense glare. "Listen to me. If we're to get out of here, you need to be as whole as possible. You'll need to walk. You'll need use of your hands."

Sherlock shivered, but he didn't argue. Sally was making a lot of sense, surprisingly enough. Though her determination was enigmatic. Why bother? She had a better chance of getting out on her own; she ought to leave him behind. Sherlock's teeth chattered. "Fine," he said finally. He was trying to glare as he said it, but all that happened was a blank stare. He even tried to inject some venom into it, but his gaze was glossed over and uncommunicative. So mostly he just looked dreadful.

"It's gonna hurt like hell, but when it's done, you might be able to use that arm again, at least a little." Donovan's cold fingers wrapped around Sherlock's arm – one hand at his elbow and the other gripping his hand. She flexed her fingers against the back of his hand, her grip firm and confident.

"Don't count," Sherlock said roughly. _John always counts_. _Makes it so much worse._

"Fine." Sally counted in her head. One. Two. Three -

Down, in, up. Three swift movements. Sally both heard and felt the familiar shift-click of the joint sliding back into place, and Sherlock's nails dug into the back of her hand at the same time. His back arched up off the wall and the sound that came out of him didn't quite match the screams she'd heard during her interrogation, but it came dangerously close. She had the sense that he was trying to keep quiet in case someone was waiting to burst in, but at this point, Sally couldn't care less. A door opening to admit a guard would be as good as an opportunity to escape, as far as she was concerned – even if she had to drag the Freak out by the hair.

Sherlock's voice petered out into a soft groan, and his eyes rolled up into his head.

"Freak," Sally murmured, caught somewhere between _keep him awake_ and _for god's sake, let him sleep_. Her indecision involuntarily resulted in the latter, and she watched as he mumbled something unintelligible and went lax against the wall.

There was not much else to be done, once Sherlock was unconscious (_not dead_, Sally confirmed). She did her best to clean up some of the worst of the scratches, but he looked as though he'd been in the losing side of a bad fight. Some of the wounds were days old – dried blood and green bruises told the tale. He'd announced his departure for Dublin four days before Sally was kidnapped: had he been here all that time?

She finished up and spread the long coat over the sleeping form once more, settling back against the wall to stew silently at her own shit luck. Not only does she get shut out of the case of the decade, but then when she's finally resigned to the idea, she gets dragged _into_ selfsame case on the wrong end. _Then,_ the icing on the cake: stuck in a cell with a very badly wounded Sherlock Holmes. Could it get much worse?

Though, she couldn't help being surprised.. Donovan's eyes strayed toward the unconscious figure of the detective. He'd submitted himself to this torture in an effort to save Lestrade and crack the case. What's more, he'd come out here without backup, trying to keep other people (John Watson in particular) safe from this sort of danger. It was difficult to see this cold, calculating psychopath as anything else, but now she was forced to face the idea that there was more to him.

Well, it didn't change the fact he was a right arsehole ninety-nine percent of the time.

His shock hadn't gone unnoticed, either. Sally had caught the look he gave her when she had sat down next to him and started attempting to care for his wounds. _What, did he think I'd enjoy this_? she wondered bitterly. _Remind me which of us is the 'high-functioning sociopath'?_

"I hate you most of the time," she said to the grey lump that was Sherlock. "But I wouldn't wish this on anyone. You stupid git."

Exhaustion was settling into Sally's bones. She sighed and settled a little more comfortably against the wall, staring at the section of tile across the room that she thought must be the door. _The next time it opens,_ she thought, _we're going through it._

Even with all her brazen confidence, Sally Donovan should have known that wasn't true.

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TO BE CONTINUED


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Warning – Poorly written action sequences. Scenes of violence. Swearing. BAMF!Donovan. Inaccurate depictions of federal law enforcement authorities.**

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Stockholm syndrome is defined as an extraordinary phenomenon in which a hostage begins to identify with and grow sympathetic to their captor. It is so named because of an episode that occurred in Stockholm, Sweden, in August of 1973, in which an armed robber took bank workers captive, held them for six days, and apparently won their hearts and minds.

Sherlock pondered Stockholm syndrome for four days. He pondered it while his captors carved cruel fissures into his skin. He pondered it while he lay bleeding and shivering on the floor of his cell. He pondered it while Sally Donovan was being dragged from her flat.

And no matter how long he pondered it, he could not reason it out in his mind. It made sense medically, psychologically, but in reality? In practise? When Sherlock considered the idea of somehow sympathising with his captors, he nearly laughed aloud.

Unlike the Norrmalmstorg robber, these men did not casually stroll about the place singing popular 70s tunes. So perhaps the key to Stockholm syndrome lies in _not _being tortured for information.

Somewhere along the way, Sherlock had nearly gotten used to the pain, the dark, and the utter aloneness. He knew that it was a sign he was reaching his psychological breaking point. He was becoming resigned to the thought – no, the _fact_ – that he would die here. Of infection, probably; unless they killed him very soon. And then along came Sally Donovan.

Sally. Why Sally? Why, of all people, Sally? It was a testament to the disorganisation of these criminals. They clearly did not have a good line of information on the investigation. Mistaking Sherlock for Lestrade was dumb, but grabbing Sally was even more foolish. What on earth had led them to believe she was involved? Either they were being fed false information – in which case: why? - or they truly were as dull-witted as they seemed.

More often than not, the answer to any question is the simplest one available. Stupidity was probably the culprit here. And because of it, Sally had ended up stuck here, too.

Sherlock had hoped to keep from involving anyone else unnecessarily. Lestrade was off chasing some other lead, with the whole of Scotland Yard behind him. John was occupied with information-gathering. Sergeant Donovan had not even been on the case. And everyone thought Sherlock himself was in Dublin tracking down a witness.

Funny how things worked out sometimes.

The dim light swinging from the centre crossbeam seemed almost blinding to Sherlock as he opened his eyes some hours after losing consciousness. He did not move, but swept his gaze toward the shadowy figure of his fellow prisoner. She was sitting on the filthy floor several feet away from him with her back pressed against the wall. One knee was bent, and upon it rested one slender arm. The other was folded over her midsection. She was staring at the opposite wall, but her eyelids looked heavy. At first glance, it looked like she might have been resting there, conserving her energy for whatever was to come. After a moment's consideration, Sherlock realised she hadn't been sleeping. She'd been keeping watch.

"They'll be looking for you," he said without prelude, his voice coming out in a stertorous croak.

Sally turned her head in the direction of his voice, narrowing her eyes at him across the strip of tiled floor. "Sorry?"

"They'll be looking for you," Sherlock repeated, wincing with the effort of raising his voice, however minutely. His concept of the passage of time was severely hindered by his condition, but he was certain that Sally had already been missed. "Your unannounced absence would have been strange. It would have made Lestrade uneasy, and he would have sent someone to your flat. Or he might have gone himself. The signs of a struggle were probably still present, if not obvious, when he got there."

Donovan uncurled slowly. She braced her hands on the floor and pushed herself up, only to walk the five feet that separated her from the detective and assume the same position beside him. "You think they'll figure out where we are." She seemed to melt down the length of the wall.

"Yes." Sherlock's voice was faint, but somehow still carried all his customary confidence. He didn't _think_, he _knew_.

"But you don't want them to."

"I don't know how many of these thugs there are."

Sally shrugged. "Lestrade's no idiot," she said pointedly, her eyes flashing in the dark as she looked Sherlock up and down. "Once he puts the pieces together, he'll bring a proper team."

_I know,_ Sherlock thought to himself. _And he'll bring John as well, because it won't take either of them very long to figure out that I'm not in Dublin. They've probably worked that part out already._

"He won't let anything happen to him, you know." Sally's voice was strained.

Foggily, Sherlock lifted his gaze toward her. Her face was pinched.

"John," she said by way of explanation. Donovan's ability to read minds was uncanny and unsettling.

Sherlock shivered involuntarily, and silence reigned for so long that his eyes drifted closed. _John,_ he thought. _John, John, John_. He did not regret his decision to leave his friend out of this. He made a valiant effort at imagining John at his funeral, the pain on his face. Even this did not change his mind, because in that scenario John was still _alive_ to experience grief. And Sherlock was selfish: he'd rather John live.

"Why didn't they do me, too?" Sally asked after an eternity of silence.

Disoriented, Sherlock didn't respond.

"What they did to you. Why didn't they do it to me?"

"They may yet."

Sherlock's words chilled the air like a door opening onto a frigid winter midnight. It was the truth, of course, but perhaps not what Donovan needed to hear. If she was fazed, though, she didn't show it except to draw herself up a little taller, to square her shoulders a little more decisively.

Indeed, the very thought that went through her mind was, _Like hell they will_.

Silence again. Slowly, over several minutes, Sherlock's head lolled to the side as he dipped back down into the abyssal canyon between asleep and awake. At one point, he thought he felt Sally's fingers slide under the wiry fabric of his coat and scrabble for his radial pulse, but nothing was certain. If it happened at all, her touch disappeared just as quickly as it had materialised. He sank back into chilly darkness.

He wasn't aware of how much time passed this way. Sally, on the other hand, was painfully conscious of every eons-long minute. She stared at the door – or what she thought must be the door; it was too dark to tell. Her mind was racing with questions. Why was she here? Who were these people? What did they plan to do with the Freak? Was Lestrade on his way? What did they hope to gain by beating the Freak to within an inch of his life and leaving her untouched?

_It's not me they're trying to break_.

She watched out of the corner of her eye as the detective lapsed fully into unconsciousness again. When Donovan was sure he was out, she gingerly shifted the heavy peacoat from his battered frame and peered into the sick, warm darkness beneath, but was unable to glean any real information from what she saw. The makeshift bandages were soaked with fluid from the wounds, but she didn't know what it was and whether it was a sign of his getting better or worse. Blood had also speckled the fabric here and there – this she knew was not good, but what help was there for it? She pulled her hand away, stood, and began to pace.

Hours passed. Sally grew agitated. Agitation faded into perplexity. Perplexity became concern.

Why had they left the two of them alone? For so long?

Donovan was turning over potential answers in her head when the door crashed inward, practically rocking off its hinges as it smashed into the wall beside.

"Sit down," said a shadowy figure in the doorway.

Sally did not sit down. Instead she placed herself between Sherlock and the man at the door, feet braced shoulder-width apart.

Sherlock grunted, "Don't," and she backed toward him a little bit but did not surrender her defensive position.

The guard at the door disappeared and a quarter second later he was replaced by another masked man – this one bigger and muscular, swinging something between his hands in a wordless threat. "Sherlock Holmes," he said slowly. His face was completely obscured by the mask, but it seemed that he was smiling.

Sally quickly realised that neither of these men was the one who interrogated her. They were grunts, sent in to do the dirty work. And in this case, dirty work was not good news for either her or Sherlock. Behind her, the detective was moving, pushing himself back against the wall, trying to draw himself up or perhaps stand. She shifted closer to him but didn't lower herself to his level. "They were listening?" she questioned in a whisper, wondering if their careless conversations had led the enemy to the knowledge that Sherlock was not who they'd thought.

Unsurprisingly, though, Sherlock shook his head in the negative. No, of course not. They knew who he was because it had been very stupid to think he was anybody else, and by now Lestrade had surely launched a full-blown rescue operation. There was no doubt that the press had probably gotten their grimy fingers on some of the information already. Two and two makes four.

"Don't do anything stupid," Sherlock said sharply. He had gathered his legs beneath him and pushed himself semi-upright – not quite crouching but no longer prone. He was preparing for action. He expected Sally to attempt escape even as he told her not to.

"Suppose they'll be coming shortly," said the masked man, as though he had not been interrupted. He tapped his left hand with his weapon – it looked like a police-issue baton.

"And I suppose you'll imprison them, too," Sherlock said, panting with the effort of holding himself up.

"Nope," the man said cheerfully.

"You can't murder an entire police force," scoffed the detective, sensing the man's wicked streak. "If it were even possible, it would be highly inadvisable. The whole world would know where you are if you did manage it – which you wouldn't. You will all die."

"Who said we intend to kill them?"

_Oh._ Sherlock's lips wrapped around the word, but his voice didn't get that far. They were not preparing for a siege, they were planning on retreating. After they killed their prisoners. Their entire plan had gone belly-up. This base of operations was compromised. So why did this grunt seem so pleased?

_Well, that's an easy one_, Sally thought, reading Sherlock's expression. She had come to the same conclusion – before Sherlock had, she might add – and the masked man's pleasure came from the satisfaction of a job well done. Prematurely, mind you, because Sally had no intention of dying here.

"Tie her up," the man barked at the door guard.

Donovan glanced over her shoulder at Sherlock, who nodded.

_Might as well try. Nothing left to lose, really._

"Who else are you keeping chained up here?" Sherlock demanded of the one with the baton.

The door guard entered with a pair of handcuffs and a coiled length of black cord. The one with the baton wrapped a hand around Sally's upper arm, but his eyes were on Sherlock.

"Doesn't matter to you," he said to the detective.

"It does," Sherlock countered. His knees were trembling, struggling to prop up his scant weight. Starvation, dehydration, and the multitude of injuries had made him limp, soggy, and useless. Sally ought to save herself and forget him. The realisation hit him like a sackful of bricks and he slumped a little against the wall. _I never truly expected to leave this place alive,_ he thought, and he knew it was the truth. _But she doesn't know that, and she still thinks we're both going to survive this. Think quickly._ Sherlock's eyes rapidly scanned the dim cell. There were two guards in the room, obviously; but there might be more in the hallway. The door guard might be armed, but he couldn't tell. He knew the other one was, as he was twirling a baton in the hand he wasn't holding onto Sally Donovan with. This guy was short and stocky – not much taller than Sally but nearly twice her weight at least. He was strong. The door guard, on the other hand, was lean and wiry, though broad through the shoulders. This meant upper body strength, but not an overwhelming amount. He would be fast, too, but his hands were occupied with the cuffs he was carrying. Now, Sally. Sally was tired, but she was far from beaten. She still had plenty of fight left in her, and adrenaline would probably propel her escape. Sherlock, on the other hand, was about as useful as a paperweight. He would do no fighting today. He could, however, provide a suitable distraction.

The problem, then, Sherlock realised as time caught up to his thought process, was communicating all of this to Donovan. If it were John, if it were Lestrade, he would shout a code word, a nonsensical signal to let them know what he was thinking. _Vatican cameos. Ten-thirty-five. Rossignol_. All things that would alert either man to the danger at hand, to the bare-bones command of _Run_ but which would sound completely insensate to Sally Donovan.

_Well, why not the obvious?_ Sherlock thought. The muscles in his thighs bunched obediently, if a little weakly. "Sally," he said. He lifted his eyes to hers as she turned her head toward him, and Sherlock took a breath in the split second it took for their eyes to meet.

At the exact moment that the door guard was reaching out to Sally.

At precisely the time the baton man was about to shout at them both to shut it.

At the same time that somewhere, Greg Lestrade was climbing into an armoured truck with twenty other Kevlar-coated men.

As all of this was happening simultaneously, Sherlock concentrated all of his strength into one final movement, and shouted the word "Run!" before launching himself at the baton man.

Sally was dragged sideways and then released as baton man toppled under the sudden weight of consulting detective. She spun to the stunned door guard and thrust an elbow between his eyes. The satisfying sound of bone crunching beneath bone echoed in her ears, and she recovered from the torque of the blow in time to see the guard stumbling backwards with his hands clasped to his face. Blood was issuing from his nose at an alarming rate, and he screamed something profane. He had dropped his handcuffs and the cord. In one swift, fluid movement, Sally strode forward, grabbed the cord, and looped it around the man's neck. She pulled it taught, watching his face as he struggled. He reached out, first trying to pry her hands away and then scrabbling for her throat. His fingers dug into the soft flesh beneath her jaw.

The baton man was quick to roll Sherlock off of him, but Sherlock was quick, too. He ducked a glancing blow from the baton and brought his knee up swiftly, sinking it into the man's gut before he had a chance to get to his feet. He scrambled backward as the man reeled but did not fall. The blow was too weak to do any real damage. "Fucking hell," the man spat as he regained his feet. He was unsteady, but it was from shock, not injury. He snapped the baton out to its full length and towered over the detective.

Behind him, Sally was dropping the unconscious door guard to the floor, but she was staggering, teetering into the wall with one shoulder as her hands groped at her own throat where he had tried to strangle her. She was coughing, her breathing ragged and audible as she struggled to draw in breath through her crushed windpipe.

With a glance past his assailant at the sergeant's struggles, Sherlock knew that this was it for him. He hoped it had bought Donovan some time, because otherwise this was a total waste. _Idiots, _Sherlock thought one more time, watching as if from outside his own body as the thick length of the baton rose in a swift arc over the masked man's head. _From this angle, a strike like that could mean an instant death. There is a serious lack of creative spark here..._

But the strangest thing happened next. The baton came down, but its trajectory was wobbly and uncertain. It smashed down into Sherlock's collarbone instead of his face, sending a crippling shockwave of pain down his arm but clearly not killing him. He sucked in a breath and forced his eyes to focus.

Sally had come up behind the baton man and wrapped the cord around his throat, dragging him backward. The muscles in her shoulders were straining from his weight, sinews twisting visibly, and her mouth was set in a grimace as the man fought back, waving the baton wildly. It cuffed her temple, sending her reeling back against the wall, but she hung onto the cord with all her might. The two of them crashed to the floor, and the man's weight pinned Sally beneath him. She cried out slightly as the back of her head made contact from the wall, but not once did her fingers slacken.

"Fucker," she grunted. _Just die already_, she thought bitterly, and some part of her was quietly horrified.

Oh, there would be a lot of therapy needed after this.

"Get up, Freak," came Donovan's next words, as the baton man's struggles began to weaken. Her voice was cautious, warning.

Sherlock realised with some difficulty that he was lying motionless on the tile floor. No doubt he appeared completely lifeless. _No, _he thought in response to Sally's order. _I don't much feel like moving._ His eyes slid shut.

The baton man's body quieted in shifts and jerks, and finally he stilled altogether. There was the sound of scraping and grunting as Sally maneouvred herself out from beneath him, yanking her limbs out from his crushing weight with brutal swiftness. She scrambled across to Sherlock and shook him roughly. "Let's go," she said gruffly. She grabbed the detective by the arm and tried to haul him up, but he was dead weight. She shook him again.

"Go," Sherlock groaned.

A growl of disapproval passed Sally's lips, and she dragged Sherlock into a sitting position. "I'm trying," she replied. "You're the one not cooperating."

"No – _you_. Go." Sherlock's voice was strained from the pain of movement.

"For all that vast intelligence you're supposed to possess, you're bloody stupid."

"Sod off."

"Yeah, yeah. Get _up._" Sally braced her shoulder against his chest, wrapped one hand around his arm, and snaked the other arm round his waist. When she stood, she pulled him up with her and steadfastly ignored the moan she heard in response. He was surprisingly light.

Most of the makeshift bandaging had fallen off his torso, exposing the wounds that were now bleeding afresh. For a moment, Donovan looked around for something to wind around his chest to slow the bleeding, but there was nothing readily available, and time was running out. Besides, if she put him down now, she knew there might not be any getting him back up again.

Sherlock's head lolled forward, pitching them both off balance. Donovan half-dragged him away from the door, picking up the coat that lay in the corner. It would do no good to get out of here only to have the Freak die of exposure out there in the cold.

If they even got that far. Donovan shuddered.

Shouldering the detective's weight, Sally moved as quickly as she could toward the hallway. She peered out, looking right and left for any sign of life. There was none. It wouldn't stay that way for long, though. And the two prisoners were very much defenseless. She glanced back into the cell.

Sherlock seemed to read her thoughts, and he transferred his weight from her steady frame onto his own two feet. He clung to the doorjamb for support as she dashed back into the room.

The door guard was unarmed but the baton man had dropped his weapon of choice. Sally snatched it up from where it had fallen and tucked it through her belt. It wasn't much, and it wouldn't do much damage in the face of human trafficking thugs who probably had plenty of experience with firearms, but it was surely better than nothing.

"Let's go," Sally said as she returned, pulling the detective away from the threshold again. He was dreadfully pale. Her lips thinned and she tightened her grip around his waist. Together, the two of them stepped out into the hallway.

The compound in which they were being held resembled a hospital or a laboratory. It reminded Sherlock of St. Bart's, in a way. Except that Bart's didn't have any lower-level wings dedicated to the holding of prisoners.

The hallway opened out before them, and Sherlock peered into rooms as they went by. Each one looked like the cell that they had just come from: filthy ceramic tile, dim lighting, signs of past struggles. _This must be where they keep their human cargo_, he thought.

"We need to go up," he choked at Sally. The effort of walking was far more taxing than it ought to have been. He lurched toward the wall to help hold himself up as they went stumbling down the hallway.

"Up," Sally repeated.

"Yes. We are underground. Wait. Do you hear that?"

They stopped and listened. Faintly, they could both make out voices. Sally strained to hear what they were saying, but they were too far away. She thought she heard two voices, maybe three. No, wait. Four. No, three. Blast, it was too hard to tell from this distance. "We should keep going," she hissed.

"Three voices," Sherlock said in an arrested rasp. "Men. Large. Except one who has a dodgy leg."

"How..." Donovan began to question, but stopped herself. It didn't matter. "I hope you're right," she said, as they rounded the next corner and stopped in front of a staircase. "Because I'm pretty sure those voices are coming from up there."

* * *

"I donno, mate, he said pack it all up."

"It's rubbish. Just toss it!"

"I ain't one to disobey a direct order."

"Oh, for love of – you two! Quit the arguing. Put everything in crates."

Sherlock and Sally were huddled together into an alcove at the top of the stairs. The floor they had emerged onto was in sharp contrast with the one they had just come from – it was clean, well-maintained, with a blue stripe painted onto one wall of the long hallway. The only similarity between the holding area and this one was that they were both finished with the same ceramic or porcelain tile. They were again reminded of a hospital.

The three voices – two English, one distinctly Russian (St. Petersburg, according to Sherlock) – were coming from a room just off the stairwell. When Sally peeked into the room, she saw the men ransacking the place. At least, that's what it looked like at first. Their conversation revealed that they were, in fact, packing. She assumed it was for the retreat, but they were acting awfully blase about it.

_They have no idea what's happening_, she thought. This whole ordeal was getting stranger and stranger. Whoever was in charge of this operation didn't seem to care at all what happened to his employees. Rather than evacuate them or marshal them against the oncoming police forces, he was engaging them in senseless, pointless tasks. He was basically asking to have them slaughtered. Was he really that stupid, or was he trying to send a message?

Beside her, Sherlock shivered incessantly. The journey up the stairs had left him feverish, exhausted, and weak. He muttered nonsense under his breath, tried to tell Sally again to go on her own, and had ultimately crumpled in the doorway, unable to go on without a moment to gather his strength. Sally had obliged, seeing as they were unable to continue unnoticed anyway, and bundled the both of them into a little storage alcove just beside the stairwell.

"There's nowhere to go," Sally murmured quietly. "We won't make it past them without being seen."

Sherlock's eyes fluttered in response. Somewhere, beyond the veil of fever, he knew that Sally could probably make it past unnoticed. If she were by herself. If she weren't burdened with dragging him around.

"Don't say it again," Donovan warned as she watched his face in the near-darkness. She wanted to shout at him, and it took all her self-control to confine her voice to a whisper. "If you fucking say it again, I will _still_ drag your arse out of here, and then I will kill you myself. Are we clear?"

"Dead end," Sherlock said stiffly, and it wasn't clear to which situation this pithy observation applied. Perhaps both.

Donovan crouched down beside Sherlock, knees to chest, and wracked her brain. There were three men in there, all of them bigger than her. Sherlock was useless in the physical department. They were both unarmed, save for a stupid nightstick. Sally's peek into the room had not revealed anything useful aside from a bunch of packing crates and the bumbling idiots loading them.

Movement at her side interrupted the bleakness of Sally's thoughts, and she looked over to find Sherlock casting about, craning his neck this way and that to find – what? It wasn't clear. But he was mumbling insensately, eyes darting around as he searched for a solution that he apparently suspected might be written on the walls or the ceiling.

"We could go back down," Sally suggested after far too much of this. "We could find an alternate way up."

"There isn't one," Sherlock said wearily. "And I cannot go back down."

It was true. Sally could see the way he trembled, the sheen of perspiration on his face from the effort of holding his head up. He might make it down the stairs, but no further.

"You could make it past them on your own. If you timed it properly." His eyes caught what little light there was, reflecting it back from deep pools of grey.

"We already talked about this, Freak – "

"And then come back."

Sally blinked.

"Go, and then come back for me."

The thought had already crossed her mind, but there was nowhere that Sherlock would be safe while she proceeded. And who said that she would even be able to get back without raising the alarm?

"This floor is deserted aside from those three men." Sherlock's speech was limping and slurred, but he pressed on. "That means it might be used for storage. They may have weapons up here, something useful."

"There may also be guards at the end of the hallway, then," Donovan pointed out. "Nobody keeps a cache of guns on an unguarded floor. Besides, we think the Yard is on the way, don't we? Whoever's running this operation wouldn't leave their guns – _if they even have them_ – lying about in wait for the police to confiscate."

Sherlock had known it was an optimistic speculation, but he had hoped it would prompt Donovan to move. She was, perhaps, a bit more intelligent than he gave her credit for. He made a note of it.

"The fact of the matter is that we have no information and one way to proceed. We cannot continue to sit here."

Well, he was right about that. Donovan swore under her breath and glanced around in much the same fashion her companion had done, but there was no secret solution written on the walls. There wasn't even a broom cupboard to hide in.

"Go," Sherlock was saying now. "We are wasting time."

_And time is something you don't have,_ Donovan agreed, watching him carefully. She glanced over her shoulder, down the long hallway. It was a very exposed length of floor to be traversing without a weapon. She longed for the nine-millimeter's comforting weight on her hip. "You got me into this," she reminded him.

"I am aware."

"Stay here." Sally stood and crept, catlike, out from the sheltering storage space and into the vast, white expanse of the hallway. In a crouch, she moved toward the room where the three men were packing. She could still hear them talking, but they sounded far away now, comparatively. She guessed that they were on the other side of the room, and that their voices were muffled by the towers of packing crates all around. A cautious peek into the room proved her theory to be correct. In a moment of hesitation, she glanced over her shoulder, stepping out a little from the wall to crane her neck. She could make out a sliver of Sherlock's face, and he appeared to be asleep. Or unconscious. Or dead. Either way, she wouldn't be able to move him without a lot of noise, and so her hesitation gave way to a sense of urgency. She glanced into the room one more time to confirm that the men were still occupied, took a deep breath, and ventured across the threshold in three swift steps. She paused at the other side, pressing herself against the wall, waiting for someone to shout or for a gun to go off. Thankfully, neither of these things happened. The men continued their conversation, punctuated by the sounds of their work.

Some of the tension left her shoulders at having passed unnoticed, but it was replaced with a new kind of fear: this hallway was very open, and very long, and anybody might enter at any time. Sally traversed its length with quiet speed, mindful of any sound her shoes made as she walked. She tried the first door she came to. Locked. Then the next. Locked. The one after was open, though, and she slipped inside, shutting it behind her.

Sally found herself in a large, empty room much like the first one. There were packing crates in here, too, but not many. She strode toward one of them, popping the lid and pawing through the contents. Clothing. Some of it dirty and carelessly flopped into the box, some folded neatly. The garments were of all sorts – women's shirts, men's trousers, jackets, underthings, children's wear. It looked like a donation box waiting to be taken off to a charity shop.

Then she remembered what Sherlock had said. _Not drugs. People. Women, children. _She dropped the small green t-shirt she was holding as though it had burned her, and backed away from the box. With a lead weight firmly planted in the bottom of her belly, she prowled toward another box and prised its lid off. More clothes. A third box: necessities like bath tissue, soap, and toothpaste. Another box held a scant collection of first aid supplies. She pushed this one toward the door, separating it from the others with the intent to loot it later, and picked up her pace, going through box after box with careless hurry.

The things Donovan found in that room were the types of articles one might find at a non-profit preparing to send aid to a third-world country. It made sense that human cargo needed to be cared for properly, if it was to reach its destination and turn a reasonable profit, but there was something nauseating about the idea. A violent shudder crawled down Sally's spine at the thought of these monsters giving first aid to frightened children, only to sell them to the highest bidder on the other side of the globe. She did her best to put the thought out of her mind – _Lestrade will find these people and bring them to justice – _and continued her search.

There were no weapons in the room. Aside from a few first aid supplies and a clean shirt for Sherlock, there was nothing to be had here.

"Damn it all," she swore softly. Carefully, she moved across the room and stood on a box to get a peek out the window set high into the wall. She was not tall enough to get a good look out, but she did catch a glimpse of the ground stretching out some distance away. They were not high up. In fact, Sally guessed that this floor was still partially underground, hence the high-set window. If only it wasn't so narrow, she might try to climb out of it.

Finally, when she was resigned to the failure of her search, Sally crept back toward the door and opened it slowly, poking her head out into the hallway. All was quiet. If she strained her ears, she could just make out the murmurings of the men packing down the hall. Satisfied that no one was about, she picked up a meagre first aid kit and a clean shirt and proceeded out.

There were three more rooms on this floor. They were all locked. There was also a door at the end of the hallway, and it was locked too. Sally spied a surveillance camera above the door and had a miniature heart attack before noting the absence of the red 'record' light. It was switched off. This area really was deserted.

But that meant that they were trapped.

_I'll bet ten-to-one that one of those thugs has the key to that door, though,_ Sally thought, eyeing the exit out of the wing. She crouched in the shadows and bit her lip. There was one thing she could try that wouldn't result in immediate bodily injury, but it was risky. Very risky. Still, she didn't see another solution. Sherlock didn't have time to waste sitting in that storage alcove. And, if they were going to die, it really would be better if it was sooner rather than later. No sense prolonging this ordeal.

First things first: clothes. Sally ducked back into the unlocked room and changed out of her filthy clothes. It took her a few minutes to find something that was both clean and fit well, but find them she did, and slipped into a pair of dark jeans and a t-shirt. _Sorry_, she thought as she wondered to whom these things might have belonged. She tied her hair back with an elastic she found in the toiletries box, and prayed that she looked the part. She would need to play this role carefully. She stowed her ill-gotten supplies just inside the door to the unlocked room, and stepped out into the hallway.

With all the confidence of someone who belonged there, Sally Donovan strode into the room where the three men were packing, stopped in the doorway with her hands on her hips, and cleared her throat loudly.

All three men looked up from what they were doing.

"What the hell are you still doing here?" Sally demanded in an exaggerated cockney accent.

"Who're you?" returned one of the larger men. He fixed Sally with a puzzled expression, sizing her up.

Sally's hand strayed to her hip. "You have orders!" she barked. "You were supposed to be on the main level an hour ago! There's an entire shipment to go out before nightfall, and you're doing fuck all in here!" _Dear, dear god. Please let that at least sound accurate._

"What!" the Russian chimed in, straightening from a box and striding over. He towered over her as he drew close. "Orders from who?"

"From the top," Sally said, her voice taking on a threatening edge. "Where else?"

"I don't know you," the third man said, as he and the other Englishman followed the Russian.

"And you don't want to," Sally advised in a dangerously low voice. "Now I suggest you get moving."

Nobody budged.

"You and you!" she barked at the larger Englishman and the Russian. "Go! Now!" She clapped her hands at them. The three men seemed to think better of arguing with her – better safe than sorry! - and scurried off. Sally grabbed the third man by the shirtsleeve and held him back. "Not you," said Sally, dragging out the word in a way that suggested she found him terribly daft. "You, finish this. And be quick about it!"

Surprisingly, he obeyed.

Sally felt rather empowered.

She watched the grunt as he went back to his work, and listened tensely for the sound of the hall door opening and then closing. She heard the click of the lock as it was re-engaged from the other side. In one stride, she stepped out into the hallway to confirm that it was, in fact, deserted, and then went back into the packing room and shut the door.

This got the thug's attention, and his head appeared from behind a tower of boxes. "Whatcha do that for?"

Dramatically, Sally sighed. "We have some business," she said in her normal voice. If the man noticed the change in her accent, he didn't indicate so. He was staring blankly at her, waiting for her to continue. Something hopeful sparked in his eyes, and Sally had to exert a lot of self-restraint to avoid snorting.

In a few long steps, she closed the space between herself and the thug, drawing her baton from her waistband as she did. He seemed to realise that she was not coming onto him, and started to scrabble at his hip for his own weapon. Unfortunately for him, he was not quick enough, and Sally brought her stick down in a fast, wide arc against the side of his head. He went down right away, moaning as consciousness slipped away.

"That was much easier than I had thought," she muttered, glancing around the room. The red 'record' light of a surveillance camera blinked cheerily out at her from a corner. "Well... almost."

Sally was quick about patting down her friend the packing man. As she had hoped, he had a set of keys on him. Now, as long as one of those keys worked in the door at the end of the hall, they were golden. At least until whoever was watching those cameras sent people down. But Sally decided to cross each bridge as she came to it.

She sprinted back out into the hallway, down to the unlocked room, and grabbed up her supplies. Then she went back to the alcove and crashed to her knees beside Sherlock, the keys jingling in one hand.

"Brilliant performance," Sherlock whispered.

"Yeah, yeah. Here, take this." She shoved a few pills into his hand. "Might help the pain and keep you from collapsing on me." When he didn't respond, she shoved his hand toward his face. "Take them!"

With shaking fingers, Sherlock did as he was told. Then Sally was pushing the collar of a t-shirt over his head, and he keened as the rough material slid over his chest.

"Sorry," Donovan muttered, helping to pull his injured shoulder through one of the sleeves. "Better than nothing, though. It's cold out there. Besides, no cab will take us with you just wearing dirty trousers and a peacoat. You'll look like a creep."

"Ha," said Sherlock.

Sergeant Donovan did not ask if he was ready, or waste time on any more first aid efforts. She knew that this was it – they would get out of here now or they would die. She hauled him to his feet, and half-dragged him to the door at a jog. He barely kept up, feet dragging clumsily with every other step, but he did not protest or complain. His jaw was set resolutely; he directed his unfocussed eyes at the door ahead of them.

It was kind of admirable, really. Soldierly.

The door opened onto another hallway. At the end of this was a set of stairs.

"That leads to the main floor," Sherlock said with certainty, lifting a shaking hand to point.

Sally squeezed his waist, pulling him higher against herself. "This is it, then," she said softly.

Sherlock took a deep, shuddering breath. "This is it."

* * *

"You are not coming."

"I have to."

"John, this is not up for discussion. You can stay with Command, but that's as far as you go!"

"Arrest me, then."

The silence that pervaded then was tense, the two men staring each other down. Lestrade was in full combat gear – he had insisted upon accompanying the federal authorities when he found out that Sherlock and Sally were being held at the Wakefield group's compound in Brixton. Of course he told John. And of course John was adamant that he would bust in there and rescue Sherlock himself amidst a hailstorm of gunfire. _Risks be damned!_ John had shouted in a fit of rage when they had first had this discussion. They'd left it at that, but now Lestrade was suiting up and preparing to leave and John would not be swayed just because the DI had cleverly dodged the subject for the last three hours.

"We don't have time for this," Lestrade growled.

"Precisely." John stared unflinchingly up at him, blocking the door.

If you'd asked Lestrade a few days ago whether he ever thought he would get in a fist fight with John Watson, he would have laughed in your face and told you he wouldn't dare. But now, as the ex-soldier stood in front of him with burning determination in his eyes, he knew he may very well have to do so. Without another moment of hesitation, he shoved John aside and brushed past to follow the rest of his team out.

"Lestrade!" John's voice had a dangerous edge. He lunged for the DI, but two sets of strong hands restrained him. He could hear handcuffs being fumbled with. "Damn it, Lestrade!"

_He's going to kill me when I get back, _the DI realised. _Better bring back a reason for him not to._

* * *

"They're here, Sherlock. Did you hear me? They're here." Sally was crouched beside a door, listening intently. "I can hear the trucks."

_Then so do they, _thought Sherlock dizzily. _Scotland Yard will be the death of us._ He shivered and collapsed.

Sally stood and spun to catch him, staggering under his sudden weight. "Don't – " she started to say, but she was interrupted by the door bursting inward with explosive force. Wood splinters rained down on top of them as Sally was thrown forward and to the floor, one hand shielding her own head from the debris as the other covered Sherlock's face.

A masked man stood over the pair, and Sally recognised the voice of her interrogator.

"There you are," he said. "I've been looking for you."

"You're fucked," Sally informed him, getting to her feet. Sherlock lay unconscious beside the wall.

"We all are," the man agreed. He peeled off his mask. "Orders from the top."

Sally recognised that he was quoting the line she had used on the thugs downstairs, and knew that he had seen the surveillance video.

His hands disappeared into his pockets.

Donovan lunged forward.

At that exact moment, an electronic detonator in the basement counted down.

Three.

Two.

One.

Zero.

Both subterranean levels exploded in a violent burst of fire from an immense stockpile of homemade bombs. The resulting shockwave rocked the entire building like an earthquake. A massive, centrally-focussed earthquake.

_That's why,_ Sally thought as she watched the walls begin to crumble around her. Everything moved in slow motion. The interrogator was scowling at her. _That's why we didn't run into anybody on the main floor. That's why the thugs were engaged in useless tasks. Essential personnel are all gone. Cargo are all gone. Everything of importance is gone, and this place is about to become rubble. And I went to all this trouble. _

There was no escape. It was all happening too fast.

_At least it will be a quick death_, thought Sally, as the entire structure of Saint Catherine's Hospital crashed down on top of her.

* * *

TO BE CONTINUED


	3. Chapter 3

She thought his eyes would be the last thing she saw in this life. It was unnerving, really – pools of grey, far too pale to be natural, and half-lidded as they were with delirium. _How did I get here? _she wondered as she stared down at Sherlock's pallid features. The building was coming down around them. The interrogator lay dead nearby. She didn't remember tackling him to the ground, scrambling away just in time as a rock smashed his head in. She didn't remember fighting the aftershock to get to Sherlock, didn't remember kneeling down beside him. Didn't remember clinging to the support beam as fires erupted along the chemical storage units. Barely remembered the colossal secondary explosion that had taken out her hearing.

But now here she was, staring down at Sherlock, he staring up at her, and she knew they were going to die here. Like this. Together.

_Wait a fucking minute_, said an indignant voice in Sally's head. _This isn't it. This isn't how I'm going to die. And not with him. Of all people? I refuse. Move! _

"Come on!" Sally shouted over the din, using her last reserves of energy to propel her legs. She wasn't sure if he heard her, and she didn't care. A burning crossbeam collapsed somewhere behind her and she flinched instinctively, but it gave her the boost of adrenaline that she needed. It also served to rouse Sherlock a little from his stupor, and his eyelids fluttered as he tried to regain control of his limbs.

Saint Catherine's was in a shambles. The structure was old and made of heavy stone. Nobody on the upper floors could have survived the collapse. The lower levels and the subterranean structures were crumbling slowly as rock shifted against rock. The newer wings of the building were all on fire. Glass burst outward from windows as pressure mounted in closed-off rooms. If they were to get out of here in one piece, they would have to move quickly.

Even then, the chances were slim. The building was not going to be standing much longer.

Sally couldn't hear her own voice for the damage her eardrums had taken, but she hoped Sherlock could. "Lean on me," she was telling him, or hoped she was. "We have to be quick. Let's move – now!"

Sherlock's eyes were wide, but not with wonder or amazement. He was taking in the scene, gauging their chances, crunching the numbers of survival probability even as he allowed one of his arms to be pulled across Sally's shoulders. Blood was soaking through his ill-gotten shirt as he struggled to keep up with Donovan's pace, but he didn't seem to notice. He didn't seem to notice much of anything anymore, except the rapidly collapsing building all around them.

"Not going to make it," he ground out. Sally did not hear him.

Painfully, she yanked him out of the way of falling rock. They scrambled over mountains of debris, Sally always stopping at the top to turn and pull Sherlock up. One time he waved at her to go, he'd catch up, but she swore and dragged him up with cruel efficiency. They kept their eyes open, focussed as much as possible on the environment, trying to warn one another of danger as they scrambled for the door.

Fire barred their path at the last.

They both cast about, searching for some way around, but there was none readily available and the structural integrity of the floor above them was dubious at best. Sally pushed Sherlock up against a fallen crossbeam and put all her weight behind a stone slab, pushing it over on top of the flames. The fire licked the edges and the middle of the slab was crumbling, but it would work well enough as a bridge. At her direction, the two of them climbed over it, Donovan pulling Sherlock the last foot or so.

"The door," she said, as he suddenly became heavy. She looked over, saw his head drooping at her shoulder. She shook him and received no response. His eyes had closed.

The main entrance was only feet away. With Sherlock unconscious or nearly, there was no way she would get him there in this awkward half-carry. She certainly couldn't lift him. She pulled her arm from around his waist and lowered him to the ground, shifting her grip so that her hands were under his arms. His head lolled back, exposing the long, white pillar of his throat. It would be slower dragging him backward this way, but she could think of no other option. They had to get through that doorway. They were so close. This would be the worst possible place to die.

It happened only once. As Sally threw herself to the ground beside Sherlock to avoid falling debris, the thought occurred to her. _Just go. Leave him. He's dying anyway_. It was the first time such an idea had crossed her mind since all of this began, but it gave her pause. She looked over at Sherlock. His face was relaxed and peaceful, as if in sleep. If he wasn't already halfway to dead, the smoke inhalation would probably kill him before he ever regained consciousness. It would be a painless death. And there were his injuries to account for, too. If they did make it out of here, would he even survive? Sally was no doctor, but she knew that Sherlock had lost a lot of blood. If she left him and saved herself, could she really be blamed? What about –

_No_, Sally thought forcefully. If it was Anderson, if it was Lestrade, if it was anybody else on her team she wouldn't even be considering it. So she shouldn't be considering it now, she decided. She pushed herself up and resumed her previous position, pulling him backward with her hands under his arms. The archway of the main entry was practically above them now. She inched backward, stepping carefully over unsteady rock and occasionally kneeling to wrap an arm around Sherlock's chest and half-lift him over some obstruction. Once she glanced over her shoulder and saw the English countryside stretching out beyond the gardens of the hospital. Just a little further and they would reach it. And then... And then... And then what?

Suddenly, there were hands on Sally's shoulders. Someone was prying her away from Sherlock, closing their fingers around her wrists and trying to guide her away and she was fighting, preparing her left arm to throw a punch when she turned and found herself staring up at Lestrade's chin, which was lifted as he gave orders to unseen officers. She couldn't hear any of it; her ears were filled with a dull roar.

Donovan slumped a little as Lestrade guided her away swiftly. He was leaning down toward her as they jogged away from the scene, asking her something, speaking, but it was unintelligible. She tapped her ear with one finger and shrugged: _I can't hear you_. Then they were stopping outside of a long black trailer and Lestrade had placed his hands on her shoulders, facing her, leaning down, his eyes questioning as his gaze swept her face. Sally nodded and gave the thumbs-up: _I'm okay_.

Lestrade's attention was drawn away by something over Sally's left shoulder and she turned to see what he was looking at. Sherlock was fighting the paramedics, weakly pushing away the hands trying to help him. His mouth was moving in a long string of what was probably muttered insults. Sally broke away from Lestrade and went over.

In the light from the command trailer, the wounds looked much worse than they had inside St. Catherine's. The shirt had been cut from Sherlock's body, and the wounds were clearly visible. Out of the corner of her eye, Sally saw Lestrade wince. He was leaning down on the other side of the stretcher, speaking to the wounded detective, but Sally poked him in the shoulder and tapped her ear again. _He can't hear you either, dummy_. He nodded in response and spoke over her, one hand directing the pair of paramedics working around them. Sally distinctly saw the word _hospital_ framed by his thin lips.

Donovan shook her head before she realised Lestrade wasn't looking at her. She buried her finger in his shoulder again. "No," she said, her voice sounding muffled and deep in her own ears. "Baker Street. John," she added, for clarity. Lestrade looked puzzled.

Sherlock's fingers curled loosely around Donovan's wrist.

* * *

John was still in handcuffs when the call came in that the sergeant and Sherlock had been recovered, and that they were both alive. A uniformed officer holding a landline dictated to John the situation as Lestrade told it, and John shouted a string of nasty insults at him until the officer agreed to unlock his cuffs and hand him the damn phone.

Lestrade explained the extent of Sherlock's injuries over the wail of an ambulance siren. Explained that he'd been fighting paramedics, that he was asking to go home. To see John. That _John_ was now the only word that anyone could get out of him. "I'll do whatever you tell me to do," Lestrade said.

_I can treat the physical_, John thought to himself. _But the rest..._ He knew that Sherlock's behaviour – that his demands to see John and only John – were a result of the trauma he had endured. And as such, he was certain that being in hospital would only compound his emotional state. Sherlock was scared and panicky and disoriented. And John didn't want him to wake up in a place as cold and sterile as a hospital room. Honestly, John was scared too, and selfish, and he wanted to be the one to treat him. No one else could be trusted. Not this time. "Take him home," he said at last. "I need to stop by Bart's and then I'll meet you there."

* * *

Donovan, Lestrade, and Sherlock were standing on the doorstep of 221b. Although, to be clear, it was Donovan and Lestrade who were doing most of the standing. Sherlock was propped limply between them. He was awake, but only just. He smiled almost imperceptibly as John opened the door to admit them.

John made a point of not asking how Lestrade had convinced the paramedics to drop them here, and Lestrade made a point of not saying.

"Can't stay," the DI stated as he followed John's directions to the bedroom on the main level. He helped John get Sherlock situated on the bed and stepped back, watching as John sat and leaned over the stricken detective.

"I figured," John said quietly, but his eyes were on Sherlock. "Go, I've got him. Surprised you came this far," he added, glancing over for a half a second.

Lestrade shrugged, as if it were obvious that he had no choice. "Keep me updated," he said, patting his pocket where the bulge of a mobile phone was visible. Then he was turning away, pushing Sally out of the bedroom door. "_You_ need to go to hospital." The door closed behind them, muffling their conversation and their footsteps until both had faded out of earshot entirely.

John's deft fingers explored the work that the paramedics had done at the scene. The wounds stretching diagonally over Sherlock's chest were packed and bandaged, but they would need to be stitched. The infection was bad, but John was hopeful. With a good dose of antibiotics and attentive care, Sherlock could make a full recovery. Use of the left side of his body might be rough for a while – the deepest part of the long, deliberate lacerations was over his left ribcage – but with time and patience, even that could be overcome. The rest of the injuries were minor and easily cared for. He was dehydrated and malnourished, too, but even that could be fixed with relative ease. John suspected the worst of the damage was psychological, emotional. Torture isn't a tool plied in order to break a person's body, not really.

"You," Sherlock croaked, and John startled slightly.

"Easy," John cautioned, but it wasn't necessary. Sherlock didn't look like he was going anywhere.

"Alright?" asked Sherlock.

John's lips thinned to a straight line and he shook his head. He pulled his gaze away from Sherlock's and went back to work, but he could feel his flatmate's eyes on him all the time. "You're an idiot," he said at last. "And when you're feeling better, I'm gonna kill you."

"I know."

"Good." John worked in silence for a few minutes. He wanted to ask what happened, wanted to _know_ so he would have an idea, at least, of where to direct the rage that threatened to boil over his forced pretense of calm, but he reined himself in and didn't mention it. Now wasn't the time. A lecture, however, did seem appropriate, and he made the attempt. "You can't do that again," he said, his voice shaking ever so slightly as he popped open a small plastic box and prepared to suture the wounds. "You don't get to send me off on a wild goose chase while you go putting yourself in a situation like that. It's not okay, Sherlock. It's not... I mean, I can't..." And just like that, John had run out of steam.

"Yes, John," said Sherlock weakly.

"Sorry?"

The detective exhaled shakily, and closed his eyes. His voice was weak and breathless. "I said yes. Yes, John. Okay..."

* * *

It was more than an hour before John emerged from Sherlock's bedroom. He had a bin bag clutched in one hand, full of biohazard that wanted proper disposal. In the other he clutched a damp flannel and a leather bag of supplies, and as he came out from the bedroom, he dropped the bags on the floor and wiped his hands on the flannel. The material reddened as he worked it between his hands. Then he gave a long sigh and slumped against the door for a minute. Now that he had Sherlock back – now that he had exercised all his God-given power in restoring him – his body was complaining loudly about the long-ignored physical demands of _food-rest-shower_. Seeming to decide something, he abandoned the towel on top of the bin bag and, collecting his supplies, headed for the sitting room.

John was extremely startled to see Sally Donovan occupying his armchair. She looked over when she heard him come in, straightening slightly out of her crumpled pose. For a few long, awkward moments, they just stared at each other. It was Sally who broke the silence.

"How's he doing?"

"Better," John said. "The infection and the dehydration combined made him very weak, but with time, he'll recover. Physical therapy is probably in his future, with the crush injury to his collarbone and the lacerations..." He trailed off as he remembered who he was speaking to. "I thought you'd left with Lestrade," he admitted, rounding the couch. He dropped his bag on the floor and sat on the coffee table so that they were eye-to-eye.

"That was Greg's plan," Sally agreed, allowing John to examine a cut above her right eyebrow. "I just... I dunno." She exhaled and shrugged.

They were quiet for a few moments as John cleaned and bandaged the wound on Sally's face. She was staring off into space as he tended the rest of her injuries, glancing up only briefly when he asked about the blood in her hair. She said something about hitting her head on the wall in a fight, and he slid his fingers up through the back of her hair to examine the wound by touch. It wasn't especially bad, but it had bled a lot.

"Might have a concussion," John murmured when he'd finished, peering into her eyes as his hands fell to his lap. "Probably should go to A&E after all."

Sally nodded.

Silence again.

Finally, their eyes met, and John asked the question they had both been waiting for him to ask. "What happened in there?"

Donovan's face fell a little. "I don't know," she said, sitting back. "By the time I got there, he was already..." She flapped a hand. "From what I understand, the Wakefield group are a bunch of idiots. His words." Sally shook her head, rolling her eyes at the absurdity of it all. "If that weren't the case, I don't know if we would have made it out."

Her words hung frozen in the air for a few minutes. John realised he was holding his breath.

"He went there so Lestrade wouldn't," Sally continued shortly. Her expression was puzzled, questioning – she was asking John why. Why would he do something like that? This wasn't the Sherlock Holmes _she_ knew.

"And if they hadn't abducted you, he never would have gotten out of there," John finished for her. Lestrade had not given him all the details, but he knew for a fact that Sally's being there was the one reason Sherlock had not perished in the explosion.

They stared at one another.

"Thank you," John added.

Sally nodded again. "It wasn't like that, though," she said. "If it had been – "

"I know," interrupted John. "But it doesn't matter."

And Donovan didn't argue, because she realised he was right. She chewed her lip for a moment, then stood. John did the same, and she stuck her hands in her pockets. "I should get going," she said. "Lestrade won't clear me for duty until I've been to A&E, so..."

John frowned. "You're welcome to stay," he said awkwardly. "I'm sure you're tired and hungry – "

"I'm okay," Sally said, waving him off. Then it seemed that something occurred to her, and she blinked over at John in a worried away. "I need to feed my cat."

"I... guess that settles it?"

They walked to the door together, and John stepped out with Sally onto the chilly street. He hugged his jumper closer around himself, and she did the same with the jacket Lestrade had deposited on her shoulders some hours ago. "You know," she said thoughtfully as she hailed a cab, "maybe he's not so..."

There were a hundred ways that sentence could have ended. _Not so inhuman. Not so awful. Not so robotic. Not so bad after all. Not so psychotic. Not so repulsive._

Sally chose not to finish it at all, and their eyes met as John's mouth quirked up at the corner just a tiny bit.

"He's still a freak," Donovan declared, glowering at John as the taxi approached the kerb.

Shrugging helplessly, John leaned against the threshold of 221 Baker Street as Sally got into her cab. "Goodnight, Sergeant," he said as she reached for the door.

"Night," she replied. The door closed, and John could see her give directions to the driver before the vehicle puttered into the road and fell in with the rest of the traffic.

Shutting the door on the cold, John climbed the stairs back to the flat he shared with his best friend, and had a new question to ponder: How would Sherlock deal with the knowledge that he owed his life to Sally Donovan? _One thing at a time, _John thought grimly. One thing at a time.

* * *

END.


End file.
